


Everything Is Nothing

by orphan_account



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Gen, over 1000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-06
Updated: 2005-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sméagol's internal struggles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Is Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> One of the first three LotR fics I ever wrote. Not sure what order they were written in.
> 
> The date is just the oldest I could find; the fic is older than that.

Sméagol remembered the drip drip in the cold, in the far end of the cavern in the darkness. It was sweet to Sméagol. So dark, so very dark where no-one can see him even if he doesn't wear Precious. All those nasty people, nasty evil people, they can't get to him here. They can't kick him and say all those words that hurt worse than kicks. He would like to kill them all, strangle them - strangle them by their scrawny necks. Watch their eyes bulge out and their tongue stick out like a fat limp piece of meat, nasty people becoming good, raw food. So their eyes would no longer see and their tongues would no longer wag, and they would never ever say bad things about Sméagol again.

But Sméagol wasn't in his lovely cavern anymore. He was under the sky, where the Yellow Face would travel by day and where night was most-times illuminated also, coloured blue and white. Under the bushes there was darkness, but not enough, never enough. If only he had Precious, then nobody could see his skin or his eyes, he would be silent-mouse-silent in the shadows, like he wasn't there at all, and he could watch the others as much as he liked and he could strangle them if they said things that Sméagol couldn't bear to hear.

But there were things that Sméagol did want to hear... He didn't need anyone, anybody! If the thieves hadn't took his Precious he would be happy, happy and alone in his lovely dark caverns. If he had Precious he would leave. But... Precious had another Master. And Sméagol sat in the bushes and listened to the sound of the Master of the Precious. Precious teased and called him, yearning him, needing him. Its new Master bore it with no joy. Why wouldn't he give Precious back to Sméagol if it was so hard to bear? But Sméagol knew how hard it was to give up Precious.

Sméagol would relieve Master of Precious anyway. Someday.

When Sméagol wasn't around, Master would talk with the nasty hobbit in words that Sméagol would never hear if he was there in front of them, in their eyes. And the nasty hobbit would speak words like whiplashes on Sméagol's hide. Words that burned through him, and he would hiss as quietly as he could in the shadows and his fists would clench, as if around the throat of the nasty, ugly hobbit.

Sneak. Thing. Wretched creature. Evil little murderer.

And Master would say, "No, Sam. Don't speak so quickly. Gollum was not always as he is now."

These were the words that Sméagol did want to hear.

Did, and didn't. They hurt him too, in a different way, twisting at something young and soft inside him, rekindling nerve endings that had been numb for centuries. But those were the words that got him sitting in the shadows, listening to conversations that he knew weren't lies because they weren't directed at him. It was like Precious' call, only when Precious was in his hands he felt love and fulfillment, a high that spun spiderwebs of pleasure in his mind. When the words touched him, they hurt... There was pleasure in hearing them, but the pleasure so intense and strange that it brought with it these little ice drops of pain.

Little ice drops of memory.

Déagol.

Sméagol winced at the memory of his smiling face, so clear and sudden, and made it black out. He pounced back into the forest, not caring if the rustling leaves would reveal him, and ran and climbed and crawled deeper and further into the forest, away from the hobbits, until he found a hole deep under the high roots of a great old tree half-fallen in some storm wind of old, and crawled there, and into a ball, and tried to bar the gates of his mind against the memories.

Precious, Precious... He needed his Precious. Precious would sing to him, and make the memories go away. Drive out the memory of Déagol that day, and all the days before, and that day, and that day Sméagol had turned Déagol into lovely raw food. Drive away the sound of his laughter in Sméagol's ears, and the warmth of his breath when it still moved. Precious in Déagol's hands. And Déagol turned into a beast, a thief, a greedy hateful little traitor who wouldn't give his dearest friend a modest bauble for a birthday present.

He didn't regret anything. Precious didn't regret anything. Precious and he were just fine, the two of them, together, as they would be if the thieves hadn't taken Precious from him... He felt something wet on his face and wiped it off with an angry hiss.

He regretted nothing.

Sméagol sneaked back to the hobbits some time later. He knew they wouldn't leave before they had had their rest; Sméagol could go on without rest, but the hobbits would need it after all their travelling, soft hobbits. The nasty one would perhaps be sitting up awake and alert again, guarding against Sméagol. Sméagol would be good, Sméagol would curl up and sleep where the nasty hobbit could see him. The nasty hobbit wouldn't kill good Sméagol, Master wouldn't let him.

He creeped up over a hillock beyond which the camp was and right enough, there the hobbits were - both of them asleep, curled up next to each other. The nasty one had his arms around Master, one open hand lying right next to Master's chest, right next to Precious. Sméagol could still take it. He could. But Master would be awake and he would speak to Sméagol with that horrible voice and it would be like the Precious commanding him. He couldn't bear the light of it, more dreadful than the sun or the cruel fires of Mordor.

So he sat for a moment there, on the hillock, looking at them. The hurt was tingling from his chest, running to the tips of his fingers. Just a little now. He could bear it.

He looked at them and tried not to remember.


End file.
